If you grew up in the 70′s-80′s decades, chances are, you may have run into High Feather in the classroom or on summer vacation. Let me give your memory a little jog. High Feather was produced by the Bureau of Mass Communications and the New York State Education Department and chronicled the experiences of eight children at a summer camp in Peekskill, NY in 10, half-hour episodes. The four boys (Leo, Stan, Tom and Domingo) and four girls (Cathy, Leslie, Ann and Suzanne) have a variety of adventures, chiefly centering on nutrition. They learn to care about their health as it relates to eating and fitness and come to be good friends by the end of the summer.
High Feather Episode Guide
Welcome To Camp
In this episode, the children arrive, meet one another and meet their counselors, Kim and Sharon. Many of the kids are disturbed by the food they encounter, both because it’s different than what their mothers cook at home and because the camp doesn’t offer salt on the tables, sugar cereals, etc. The children also have to turn in any supplements they’ve brought to camp with them because the camp provides balanced meals from which they expect the campers to derive total nutrition. The main action in this first episode revolves around Domingo avoiding swimming tests because he can’t swim. He feels ashamed and takes to the lake alone one afternoon with a leaky inner tube. He is saved from drowning by his peers who show concern and friendship for him.
Stan’s Secret
In this episode, some of the boys think Stan is stuck up because he acts possessive about his belongings. Soon, they discover that he has a health condition and everyone strives to help him with this. The main theme of this episode is a lesson in reading labels to discover what’s really in processed foods. The children throw a party for counselor, Sharon, and bake her a carrot cake and make mango sherbet from scratch.
Swifty
This episode centers on Tom’s weight problem. The main characters bet that they can beat a group of mean kids in the upcoming foot races, but the mean kids (and they really are mean kids) stipulate that if Tom doesn’t run, they automatically win the bet. Tom struggles to keep up with the others while trying to stop eating junk food, but loses heart and decides he won’t compete. At the last moment, he changes his mind and helps his team win the race.
Nose For News
Leo voluteers his friends’ time to publish an edition of the school paper. After a temporary falling out, they agree to help him, out of friendship, but all of the children struggle to find topics to write about. Tom witnesses the camp chef, Manuel Rios, fighting with the head of the camp, Mrs. Riggs. When the chef quits, Tom decides he has a scoop for the paper, but soon discovers that Chef Rios is just a bit temperamental and truly cares about the quality of the food he is providing the campers. Some of the children spend a day going to truck farms and pick-it-yourself farms with Chef Rios while the others experiment with doing Mrs. Riggs’ weekly shopping for her. They learn lessons about looking for local food (yes, locavores, even back then) that is of the highest quality at the best prices and not blowing their budget on junk food. The episode ends with Leo yet again volunteering his friends’ time to start a camp vegetable garden.
Ballerina
Leslie begins exhibiting signs of anorexia when she decides to stop eating and live on vitamins in preparation for an up-coming dance tryout. She becomes grumpy and fights with her peers. Counselor, Sharon, becomes concerned that Leslie is isolating herself. She suggests that Leslie work with Tom in the ceramics shop, making mugs, and the two have fun together. However, Tom’s feelings are hurt when Leslie continuously talks about weight and accidentally breaks some special mugs they were working on. Leslie faints during her dance tryout and her parents threaten to take her home from camp until Camp Nurse Rodriguez has a serious talk with them all about nutrition. Leslie learns that calories are like the fuel a car needs to run and she promises to eat heathily in future. She makes up with Tom by making a new tray of mugs for him and the children have a party with healthy foods.
Lost In The Woods
In this memorable episode, the campers go on a long hike in the woods. Stan and Ann break the rules by straying from the group to go bird watching and get lost. Then Cathy and Leo get lost trying to find them. The children discuss edible foods in the wilderness and not drinking untreated water. Finally, they all arrive at the McKillens’ farm late at night and the couple feed them supper while they wait for counselor, Kim, to come fetch them. While eating, the children learn that the farming couple is worried because their usual help can’t come bring in the harvest. Kim is very angry with the children and tells them that they cannot go on an upcoming backpacking trip because they can’t be trusted to obey rules. The children ask if they can go help the McKillens bring in the harvest and they have a very educational day, picking vegetables and learning about cows and chickens.
Going Home
This episode (the one I remembered most clearly from childhood) centers on Tommy who is sent home from camp because his parents can’t afford to pay for a second term there after Tommy’s father loses his job. Tommy becomes seriously depressed and immediately returns to his junk food diet, even using the family’s precious grocery money to fill a shopping cart with junk food. Then, the lessons Tom learned at camp kick in and he decides to help his Aunt Elinor cook. They serve up an inexpensive and nutritious meal of rice and beans which Tommy’s comically dysfunctional family greets with something less than enthusiasm. However, the whole family comes to feel proud of Tommy when he earns money doing odd jobs in order to buy seeds and plant a vegetable garden. Though Tommy misses camp, he has found something to do that helps him to feel good about himself again.
County Fair
In this episode, Suzanne’s older cousin Jeff arrives at the camp as a counselor. The children are trying to figure out a way to participate in the county fair, but Jeff ruins their plans by irresponsibly going to a party and forgetting to turn in their fair application. The children are very disappointed because they’ve all created healthy dishes to display at the fair. Even Stan has overcome his beliefs that cooking is for women and has taken cooking lessons from Camp Chef Rios. In the end, Jeff makes good by convincing the fair officials to let the kids set up a table anyway and he apologizes for his mistakes. The kids have a nice day at the fair after all.
Lost Dog
In this episode, some of the campers are busy trying to take care of a dog that was abandoned by an irresponsible owner. Meanwhile, Leo offers guidance to a messy little boy who won’t eat. He encourages the boy to shape up and play tennis with him. Counselor, Sharon, finds out about the hidden dog and a trip to the vet ensues. The children learn that, just like people, dogs have to have the right nutrition to function properly.
Camp Show
Counselor Kim tells the children that his relatives back in Korea are suffering from hunger because a drought destroyed their crops. The children are trying to think of a program to put on for the camp show in which the winning act will receive an award of money to put towards a charity of their choice. They meet a group of elders at a senior lunch center and discover that many older people can’t survive on social security money. An ex-Vaudeville actor named Danny offers to help the kids put together an act and other elders volunteer to make costumes and make healthy refreshments to sell at the show. The children learn that many elders are lonely, and Domingo forges a special friendship with a grumpy man who comes to see that not all kids are a pain in the neck. The children win the award by singing the theme song from High Feather and decide to split their winnings between Kim’s village and the senior center.
Interesting Facts And Funny Things About High Feather
- High Feather was filmed at a real summer camp called Camp Madison Felicia that was active throughout the 20th century as a camp for underprivileged children from urban areas.
- The wonderful music in this series, including the theme song, was composed by Peter Link who is still an active songwriter. In addition to writing the High Feather score, memorable for its marvelously fuzzy analog keyboards, harmonica and whistling, Link wrote the theme for another well-loved educational series called Vegetable Soup. Link also contributed to Sesame Street, Big Blue Marble and The Electric Company. A few years ago, I sent Peter Link an email through his website, telling him how much I had always enjoyed the High Feather music. Sadly, I didn’t receive a reply, but I’m glad I wrote, anyway. I’ve actually figured out how to play a number of the songs from this show on my piano.
- Speaking of music, I think one of the funniest parts in this whole series is when Tommy has to go to a party with his sister in the ‘Going Home’ episode. Seriously, the music the kids are listening to at the party is hilarious.
- Another funny thing – no one in the show seems to know what the Chef’s correct surname is. Some of them call him ‘Chef Rios’ and others call him ‘Mr. Rio’. Oops.
- I find the fact that this show suggests you can make a blueberry pie without sweetener of any kind a little hard to swallow. Fresh berries are sweet, but the minute you cook them, they lose nearly all of their sweetness. I’m afraid the sugar-free blueberry pie Cathy takes to the county fair would gag anyone who tried it. And while we’re talking about the fair, what exactly are the children doing to participate? They seem to be standing a table saying the names of healthy foods they’ve cooked, but how is the public supposed to interact with this rather vague display?
- This show was prone to go slightly overboard on occasion regarding nutritional propaganda, and I find it humorous that the most oft-repeated tidbit of advice is that potatoes aren’t fattening unless you drown them in butter. This is stated in numerous episodes. Did a national potato growers’ organization have a hand in High Feather?
- And, speaking of national organizations, this show is becoming quickly dated by its insistence that people need to drink milk to have healthy bones. That was definitely the spiel of the 80′s, but these days, controversy surrounding milk paints it as more of a health hazard than a help. Meat and other animal products are also fairly heavily promoted in the show, but any modern viewer will have to give credit to the makers of High Feather for its promotion of rice and beans and other vegetable-based forms of nutrition, even if they refer to them as ‘supplemental protein’.
- In the ‘Lost In The Woods’ episode, why does Mrs. McKillen yell at the children at the top of her voice to come to dinner when they are all sitting in the same room with her? What a very loud woman. This part always makes me laugh.
- And, finally, if ‘High Feather’ is a health camp, why do they have a vending machine full of candy bars? I’ve always wondered that.
Why Am I Writing About High Feather on VeganReader.com?
We’re no fans of television. In fact, we don’t have any type of TV reception here, though we do have a very old TV set we keep for occasional use with tapes. Nevertheless, I have always viewed television as a miraculous form of media. Sitting in my home, I can be transported to China, to 18th century America, into a kitchen where someone is cooking, into a story where I may learn something new about how other people live. I was raised in a house where TV viewing was strictly monitored and limited. However, each summer the local public television station would run shows like High Feather, Vegetable Soup with its emphasis on celebrating diverse cultures, The Voyage of the Mimi in which a group of children were monitoring whales while sailing in an old ship, Getting To Know Me which I recall being about taking pride in African-American roots and a variety of other short shows that promoted social harmony, health and creativity. My parents felt okay about we children watching these programs, and I absolutely loved them and continue to look at them fondly to this day.
The interesting thing about this message-filled programming was that, as a child, I really didn’t pick up on the fact that very specific axes were being ground by the producers behind the shows. In fact, I watched a show like High Feather more because of interest in the stories of the children’s lives at camp than for the nutritional teachings it packed with so strong a punch. Propaganda of all kinds if often like that. Viewers watch without questioning intent, and this phenomenon can be put to both good and bad use, as we all know so well.
Fortunately, the message behind these 70s and 80s educational shows was overall a positive one. I think that the writers and film makers of that time must have looked around at urban violence, racial tensions, bomb-dropping governments and materialistic segments of society and decided to shine a spotlight on alternative viewpoints. Black kids and Asian kids could be friends while making fry bread with a Native American lady. Chubby kids could take their health into their own hands and plant summer squash. We could all come to empathize with people of all walks of life by learning their stories and their songs. Social harmony was an ideal to be reached for and world peace might just be around the corner. If that sounds hopelessly idealistic, let’s take a look at some of the altered social norms common in people of my generation.
- In contrast to the habits of speech common in my parents’ generation, using racial slurs is not considered acceptable amongst my peers. Those nasty words have come to sound ridiculously antique in modern conversation.
- A live-and-let-live philosophy of life has people of my generation bending over backwards not to judge the religion, politics or chosen lifestyles of others in any way. Sometimes, I worry that we’ve gone too far towards an apathetic confusion of amorality in my generation, but at least we aren’t generally freaked out by the idea of people having a different lifestyle than our own.
- We’ve certainly come closer to seeing our planet as the ‘Big Blue Marble’. We are realizing that the Earth is one unit, despite the diversity of life on it, and that what affects one of us affects all of us. Global consciousness, especially heightened through Internet usage, has become normative thought.
- From public service announcements about littering to classroom lessons about greenhouse gases, my generation was the first to be bombarded with awareness and guilt over the concept of environmental pollution. Sadly, we haven’t done much about this, but we’ve got an awfully young president now, and as the years go by, the kids of the 70s will be the government. I have to wonder, will their principles and ethics be in some way informed by Woodsy The Owl?
I don’t know how deeply our show of outward tolerance runs. We’ve yet to save the world. And, we’ve got the next generations coming up under us and I really don’t know what the kids these days are watching. Does anyone still care about kids enough to produce educational TV for them that encourages brotherly love and environmental stewardship, or is it all mindless, money-making entertainment? Not having television reception, I don’t know, but I do know that if someone asked me to recommend a good program for a youngster to watch, I’d be loaning them something like High Feather which holds a special place in our hearts here at VeganReader.com. Absorbing its memorable promotion of local eating, farms, cooking from scratch and thinking carefully about nutrition, maybe it makes sense that we grew up to write a blog about organic farming, food safety, peace and justice. A 10 part educational TV series is just a drop in the bucket of all the formative experiences of my childhood, but when I think about it, I can see the connection in my life. Can you see it in yours? I’d love to hear how you feel watching this type of programming influenced your life and the person you grew up to be.
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I stumbled across this posting on a Google search for shows I worked on. I was co-creator of High Feather, along with the late executive producer Yanna Kroyt Brandt and producer Judy Seeger. (I was the idiot who said — “Hey! Why don’t we set it at a summer camp! It has controlled diet for the kids we can use to make our nutrition points, and its a goo reason for a lot of kids from different backgrounds to be together with good reason, for long enough to get to know each other!” Cut to the sixth week of shooting at a summer camp, as I’m asking myself “Who was the idiot who came up with this idea?” Oh. Right.)
I wrote six of the ten episodes and worked as Associate Producer on the summer we spent shooting it. That meant I was talent coordinator, location scout, set dresser and anything else Judy or our six eager and able production assistants couldn’t be.
I have many memories, mostly good, though eight weeks at an upstate motel shooting six days a week and care-taking not only eight strange (I mean unknown, though some of them were REALLY strange at times) kids but six boisterous college kids who are supposed to be watching them while prepping the shoot provides some darker recollections. In cleaning out boxes from my closet I have found rolls of film I shot that summer, and have to scan and organize the shots to post someplace for those who enjoyed the show — or write a book!
I went on to write children’s television for many years after that, and moved from educational and nurturing shows to more commercial animation in L.A. in the nineties. In 2001 I returned to Brooklyn to finish my first novel, pulled out of a trunk between jobs for years, and found a great agent who got me a two book deal! So, from writing for kids, I’m now writing horror novels for adults. “BITE MARKS: A Vampire Testament” came out in September 2009, an the second in an opening trilogy, “BLOOD PRESSURE: A Vampire Testament” came out soon after at the end of March, from St. Martin’s Griffin. Its been a blessing and a curse in a year that EVERYONE is writing and publishing a vampire novel, when most suck — no pun intended — but mine are better…Check out my site!
The transition has been an interesting one, though I can assure you that the same subversively positive messages we planted in the High Feather series and in almost everything I’ve written for kids, are still there, between all the grand guignol the bloodshed. Old habits die hard…I’m still preaching tolerance and understanding! Even if it’s mostly for the undead…
I LOVE what you’ve said about the High Feather series here, especially that all the things we very deliberately set out to do in the show are recognized. At that time no one thought there was any money in kid programming (not until Lucas made a fortune with Star Wars tie-in toys). Most of it was mostly put on the air as a video babysitter, and largely ignored. High Feather was funded by the New York State Education department, as was the first series I worked on, Vegetable Soup, which was all about “multiculturalism”, long before it became a buzzword decades later. We cared about our audiences an what we told them about the world and our mission was to raise them well if busy parents were handing them over to us by the millions.
As a young black writer, with few other TV writers of color to look up to then, it gave me a chance to both feel validated — as a college educated black kid from Queens who grew up in a mixed race environment as an Air Force brat, loved film writing and art — and to validate other kids in the audience who felt as different as I did when moving through worlds outside of their own, and to open all kids eyes to enjoying the diversity around them.
Yeah, we were a mixed race and cultural “ragtag” crew, and pretty idealistic, which does come off as simplistic in some of the messages of the show. But the thing we did best and what I learned doing shows like this was to entertain first, pull in our viewers — as you seem to indicate we did — then let the pro-social messages flow through the story and characters rather than forcing it down viewers’ throats. In my horror novels I’m still doing much the same thing — providing riveting conflict and resolution, packed with insights about life between the entertainment…at least I try.
If you’re interested in hearing more about y High Feather summer or have any questions, I am more than happy to comply, as I continue my new life as a novelist. Looking back on that mad summer is enjoyable, and I really do have to write about it while I can still remember what happened and track down the crew and cast to get their memories. I know Emily Wagner went on to an acting career that included a regular part on ER, I heard that Richard Crudo, one of our PAs was the director of photography on the American Pie movies — one day I have to track down the rest.
Thank you for triggering some old memories, for “getting” what we tried to do, and reminding me that it was a good thing to do, and appreciated! Your insights are spot on!
Wow, wow, wow back at you, Terence!
What an amazing thing to hear from you. You can’t guess how blown away we were to see your comment come in. Thank you so much for taking the time to write such a neat, long comment about your recollections of your summer filming High Feather. As you can imagine, this was a thrill for us to read, and I am so glad you feel I did your show justice in what I’ve written. It’s truly interesting to get a little of the background story on this show, your experience as a young black writer and the idealism that was present in the group within which you worked. Yes, your message came across, and if you check out High Feather and Vegetable Soup videos on YouTube, you will see the massive outpouring of nostalgia and love that people feel when they get a chance to see these films again.
It’s really neat that you also worked on Vegetable Soup – definitely another cult classic. As a little girl, I absolutely loved learning about different cultures and this is something I still so enjoy and have pursued education about my whole life. Unlike many kids of the 70s, my parents did not hand me over to the TV to be educated, but them allowing me to watch a few shows like the ones you worked on added richness to the teachings of valuing all peoples that I got from my family. When I watched those short features on kids like Kiko (the little Mexican-American boy) and Eddie (the little African-American boy with the snake, Nigel), I felt a kinship with the kids that was a very effective banishment of the very opposite circumstances in which racism grow from ignorance. I don’t think it’s overstating things to say that a show like Vegetable Soup may well have done a lot to create a more educated and tolerant generation of Americans. You can be really, really proud of this!
As for ‘High Feather’, I’ve said it all in my article – this was really a unique show, and when you think about what is going on these days in the various ecologically-based food movements, High Feather was ahead of its time, in many ways. I really felt it was worth writing about!
Questions? How nice of you to ask! I could probably think of a bunch of them but I’ll narrow it down to just one…what IS that music the kids are dancing to at the party Tommy goes to in the episode of High Feather in which he is sent home from camp? Do you have any idea? As I’ve mentioned above, we know Peter Link wrote the main music for the show, but did he also write that disco song or was that something else? Not sure if you will know the answer to that question, but I thought I’d take this unique opportunity to ask.
If I could ask another question, I’d love to know what you, specifically, did on Vegetable Soup.
It’s wonderful that you’ve continued to pursue a creative career, Terence, and while I must confess I don’t know anything about the Horror genre, I can’t help wondering whether there might not be a very excellent market for a book about those 70s/80s educational shows. There were tons of them, some of them very good and most of them are met with such exuberant nostalgia whenever they are discussed. It might be something of a massive undertaking to catalogue and write about them all, find imagery and stories, and perhaps, juxtaposition them with a hypothesis of how they may have affected our culture…I can’t help but think this would sell. Here is a list of the shows I remember that fall into this category – some of them obviously very well know, but others hardly remembered.
Sesame Street
The Electric Company
Mister Rogers
Vegetable Soup
High Feather
Powerhouse
Getting To Know Me
The Voyage of the Mimi
Thinkabout
Inside/Out
All About Me
Bookbird (this was one of the artist, John Robbins’, 3 shows)
3-2-1 Contact
Reading Rainbow
Eureka!
I know there are more, but these are the ones that are coming to mind and I think even a small book that covered these shows would be highly prized! Maybe sometime if you’ve got writer’s block, you could try a hand at it, for fun.
Thank you, again, so much for coming by and sharing your memories of High Feather. It was just marvelous to receive your comment, Terence, and we feel very lucky to have heard from you!
Mim
My husband and I were just reminicing and said how we both enjoyed the show when we were young.
We both said how we looked forward to that day of the week that we would get to watch it in school. His school was Thursdays, but I cant recall which day my class watched it. I remember being sick one of the “Hi Feather days” and was so disappointed because I couldnt find it on TV at home.
I remember sitting in the class room and everyone singing along with the theme song. 25-30 years later, I still think I could sing along with it.
I would love to have them on DVD to watch them again.
Greetings Teena!
Yes, that theme song was very memorable. I bet you could sing it right now. So glad to hear you and your husband remember this show fondly. I’ve found it interesting that so many kids got to see this in school. It wasn’t shown in the school I went to; rather, it was on Public Television every summer as part of a lineup of children’s shows. So, I looked forward to every summer!
Thank you for taking the time to leave a comment, and I hope you read Terence’s comment, above. What a treat it was to hear from the co-creator of this beloved old show!
Mim
And get ready for another “wow”. I periodically do a search for web sites about “High Feather” — because I’m good friends with one of the original actors, Richard (who played “Tom Page”, the boy who had to leave camp early). This show was the only acting he really ever did; today he’s a journalist.
I’d actually never heard of the show before meeting him (amusingly, we met through a blind date — I thought he was making it up to impress me!); so every once in a while I try to hunt down more information on it. It seems to be one of those shows that very few people remember, and any time I see it mentioned online it gets a handful of “I thought I was the only person who ever saw that” comments. I once found a whole blog post devoted to the episode “Swifty” and discussing how Tom was treated in that episode, and showed it to Richard; he ended up contacting the blogger and even agreeing to an interview. (The blog is no more, sadly.) Richard spoke fondly — if a bit irreverently — about working on the show.
Welcome Kim W.,
What a nice surprise to receive your comment on this, and as I’ve mentioned above, the episode in which Tommy gets sent home early from camp was the one I remembered most clearly from my childhood. My whole family loved that one and my mother went around for years laughingly quoting Tommy’s mother, “A chubby baby is a healthy baby!”
It’s great to know Richard (Tommy) is well and became a journalist (doubtless a more fulfilling career than acting might have been) and your story about thinking he was trying to impress you with his High Feather credentials is quite funny.
Where I have found this series mentioned, it is warmly regarded and someone has recently uploaded some of it to YouTube where it has received many comments of, “I REMEMBER THIS!!!” I think the show encapsulates a certain time period that many remember as more positive and hopeful than our present era. And, of course, nostalgia is a powerful force.
Kim, we’d be honored if you’d shoot Richard a link to this blog post. We almost never write about television here at VeganReader, but this is something that stood out in my mind as worthy of remembering. I have no doubt that the Tommy story line was helpful to many little kids and they would all be glad to know that the actor has grown up to have what sounds like a good life. Please send him our greetings and warm best wishes.
Thanks again for taking the time to comment here. It was a treat to hear from you.
Mim
Wow, my boyfriend stumbled across this site and what a trip down memory lane!! I play Suzanne in the series. Coincidentally, I introduced my ten year old son to the show yesterday. The Director Alan Seeger had given me all 10 episodes (on VHS of course..there was no DVD’s back then). He was shocked how much I looked at 13 like my now 17 year old daughter. He thought it was her!! It was fun to watch the shows through his eyes. Even in today’s times with all the modern day (high def), programming, etc.. he still got such a kick out of the shows. Terence, if you are reading this, I am most certain I was one of your favorite kids! lol I remember you fondly, you always seemed to have a smile on your face! There is a facebook page dedicated to High Feather, I’ve posted some comments on there. It was a challenging (hot) summer, but wow, what a great experience. Look forward to hearing back from some of you. Terence… a reunion would be awesome. Do you still keep in touch with Judy or Alan?? Thanks, Cindy
Welcome, Cindy!
It’s a treat to hear from you. As I’ve said in this article, I think very fondly of High Feather and appreciate the message that was being given through it. I liked your character ‘Suzanne’ very much and felt bad for ‘you’ in the episode where your cousin, ‘Jeff’, let you down by forgetting to register you and the other kids for the county fair. Back then, as a little girl myself, you all seemed like kids whom I would like to be friends with! Thank you so much for taking the time to comment here and I hope you can get in touch with other cast members. You can be proud that your show holds such a fond place in the minds of so many children who got to watch public television on their summer vacations or in school. You are part of our childhood and culture. Sincerely wishing you the best!
Mim
I was a huge fan of the show when I was 10 here in Ontario. Nobody recalls it but I never could forget. Thanks for this page..I have one question only: Did Tom (the overweight kid) get a cold in one episode, which prompted the others to ask how he could get a cold in the summer. Tom replied “my mom says that summer colds are the worst”…This is all I recall from the series after 30 some years now..Did I dream those lines up? Thanks, Clay
Welcome Clay!
No, you did not dream that line up. Isn’t it amazing what we can remember from decades ago? I am happy to tell you that I can describe the exact scenario in which Tommy said that.
His friends find him coming out of the camp nurse’s office and ask what he was doing in there. Tom tells a fib, saying he has a cold. The children express disbelief that anyone could have a cold in summer and Tom replies with the words you remember!
In actual fact, Tom was visiting the nurse so that she could help him plan what to eat during the week as part of his weight loss goals. Tom is at first embarrassed to tell his friends about this, hence the fib, but when they eventually find out the truth, they tell Tom they think he is smart.
So, there you have it! And I’m glad this article on High Feather brought back some happy memories for you.
Mim
wow..Thanks so much for the reply Mim. Yes it is amazing that some little tidbits remain in our memory banks..Which episode was that from?
Hi Clay,
You’re very welcome. The quote is in the episode ‘Nose For News’ described above. Tom gets to use his new-found knowledge about healthy eating when he goes shopping for Mrs. Riggs. If you look on YouTube, you just might find this episode!
Best Wishes,
Mim
I thought that i was the only one that heard of shows like this and Powerhouse! This was back when educational shows were interesting, fun and had real meaning! I liked how the kids were able to learn and also have fun (like in the track & field day when they beat the snotty Tigers who made fun of Tom “Swifty” for being fat, and Suzanne for being a girl runner and coach
You mentioned the music the kids were listening to at the party-HA! I remember it “I’d sell my soul for a little bit of gasoline!” I thought those were pretty weird lyrics too
Clay, here is someone else who was in Ontario that remembers the show! So, ha! We rule!!!
Seriously it is such a treat to read the comments here, and to see that a producer of the show, an actress, and a girlfriend of an actor responded! That is AMAZING! Hey, Tom and Suzanne (and any other actor who reads this)-can we see pics of what you guys look like now?
Has anyone seen “Bug Juice”? It came out around 2000 and is a reality show about camp as opposed to a filmed and scripted show. Or how about Salute Your Shorts? That’s a camp sitcom that came out about 1990. It’s funny how each show is so different. I actually liked all 3-but of course High Feather holds a special place for me being so young watching it.
Ironically, as tame as that show is compared to kids shows today, there is something that i don’t think would be shown today. The scene where Stan injected himself, and Domingo thought he was doing drugs. That scene always stuck with me-especially since i had no idea drugs were with needles. I only knew that some drugs could be smoked. Also, the scene where the boys are all showering together. As innocent as it was, in this day and age, that would be a no-no.
One more thing-i heard that Chef Rios (the actor) is related to Ricardo Montaban (Khan from Star Trek) Anyone know if this is true?
Welcome SJHfoto!
Wow! Thanks for being excited enough about this post to leave 4 comments. Clearly, you are a real High Feather fan! It would be fun to do a Powerhouse post, but I only own 3 episodes of that show and couldn’t do a writeup like this. And, fun though that show was (remember when Lolo faked his own funeral?), I would contend that the content of it wasn’t as praiseworthy as that of High Feather. I think it was a fun little show, but not as interesting in its messaging, you know?
Regarding Salute Your Shorts – I seem to remember my younger siblings watching this on Nickelodeon, if I recall correctly. I’d forgotten about that. I hadn’t heard about the the Rios-Khan connection! It would be funny to know if that’s true!
Thanks so much for sharing your own happy memories of these shows, and I’m so happy you enjoyed reading the nice comments left by readers connected with High Feather. We’re glad you stopped by!
Mim
Mim, thanks for the warm welcome! As much as i like High Feather, i LOVED powerhouse! I guess i was more of a Three Investigators type (kids solving mysteries) than a Bobbsey Twins type (kids go to camp, vacation, adventure etc)
Here’s another teen mystery-remember the Bloodhound Gang? It was at the tail end of 3-2-1 Contact episodes!
Anyway, i digress-i do not mean to insult or minimise High Feather at all.
I think the acting (from what i recall-i hadn’t seen the shows in a while) is very good considering the kids are not “actors” I wonder if a petition can be made to PBS to release DVDs of these shows. I know they usually are in need of money, and it seems a good way to make some.
Hi Again SJH!
Yes – I remember the Bloodhound Gang very well! And, of course, everyone has their favorites. I didn’t think you were insulting High Feather. The reason I happened to feature that particular show here is that VeganReader.com features a lot of information about food choices, so High Feather is a bit of a tie in with that subject.
I agree with you – if PBS did a pledge drive featuring these old shows and allowing member signups to receive a gift of or purchase these classics on DVD, they would get a very big response. Maybe that will happen one day!
Best wishes,
Mim
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